Workers deal with working on Thanksgiving

Area residents who have to work at stores that are open on Thanksgiving aren’t real pleased with the idea but said it goes with the nature of their jobs.

Sable LeFrereStaff Writer

Area residents who have to work at stores that are open on Thanksgiving aren’t real pleased with the idea but said it goes with the nature of their jobs.“I am not happy about losing time with family, but I enjoy working it because it’s fun and time flies by,” said Chauvin resident Nicole Domangue, 26, an employee at the Wal-Mart on Grand Caillou Road in Houma.Domangue, who commented on Facebook, has to start work at 7:45 p.m. Thursday and will not get off until 5 a.m. Friday.Just like the rest of the employees working Thanksgiving and Black Friday at Wal-Mart, she will be compensated for her loss of the holiday and will get 10 percent off a basket of goods, company officials said.After Domangue gets off, she said she plans on joining the crowd to go shopping with her daughter Steffany.Erika Romero, 30, of Houma, is another employee who has to work Thanksgiving night at a retail store. She said on Facebook that she is not excited about it but knows the responsibility of her job.“Yes, I have to work and not complaining because it doesn’t solve anything. Not that happy about it, but I joined retail, and it was my choice, and this is just something that comes from working in retail,” she said.Most of those who responded on Facebook about working on Thanksgiving were less sympathetic toward retail workers and more so toward emergency and law enforcement officials and health care workers.Wendy Tafdif, 31, of Houma, was one of those people.“I work at a drug store, and we do not even close for Christmas. ... When you apply at Wal-Mart, it’s a 24 hour store. There is a possibility you would have to work on a holiday. People should know that. So if anyone should be complaining it should be the convenience stores and drug stores not Wal-Mart,” she said.Suzanne Hubbell, 34, of Baton Rouge, 34, disagreed.“Oil, hospitals and pharmacies are necessary. Buying crap at Wal-Mart because we are such a materialistically driven country on Thanksgiving is disgusting. We gather to have dinner together and remember why we should be thankful but trample each other a few hours later for the likes of an iPad or Tickle Me Elmo.”One Target employee, Casey St. Clair, 24, of Corona, Calif., got a lot of attention this year when she started a petition on Change.org to protest having to work Thanksgiving. Debie Wishon, a Wal-Mart spokesperson, said protests by Wal-Mart workers outside a store near Washington, D.C., and a threatened boycott by employees does not reflect the attitudes of the majority of its workers. “We are going to have over a million associates working that day. The associates that are planning to walk out or boycott is very small. The whole thing is being staged by unions taking advantage of workers,” she said.“We’ve been listening to our customers through Facebook pages and the lines in our stores,” Wishon said. “Many of our customers said they wanted to start early. The fact that our stores are 24 hours, we are not doing anything crazy. Depending on what our customers want, they can either shop on Thanksgiving or Black Friday.”